Some of the trains accomplished the journey much quicker than others. But the swiftest of them all took twelve or thirteen days. And these expeditious ones were few. The next in order required three weeks--three whole weeks for a journey of 600 miles in peace time, and despite a long notification and elaborate preparations. But some of the trains were four, five, and even six weeks on the way. One hundred miles a week for perishable fruit, which rotted at the stations and sidings! Now, over against this speed-rate of thirty miles a day in normal times, you have to set the speed of the German and Austrian military train in war-time. It is thirty miles an hour. And the German goods trains running to the western borders of the Empire go from six to eight and a half times more quickly than the French. With the reasons for this astounding backwardness we are not, they went on to say, concerned. That is the business of the Republic, not ours. Speaking summarily, one might fairly ascribe it to the lack of sufficient numbers of side stations, soundly laid rails, of engines and rolling stock, and last, but nowise least, to the Republican system of railway administration. In this branch of the public service, as in the army and the navy, what is most peremptorily required is authority, and that in France is lacking. Everybody wants to command, nobody cares to obey. Not only an army, but also a railway administration should be organized on the lines of an absolute monarchy--of a despotic State, if you like--one man’s will and its manifestations, direct and indirect, being law, and from that law there should be no facile appeal. Unless this condition is realized, you cannot reasonably expect to get from the railway mechanism all the advantages which the general staff should be able to count on securing from it in war-time. This is especially true in France, where personal jealousy or disfavour so often disqualifies talent and pitchforks mediocrity into the high places of responsibility and trust. In short, France is politically moribund. From her we have nothing to fear. She will certainly not go to war to shield Servia from well-deserved punishment. And that is precisely the present issue.